


what remains

by viverella



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8908321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viverella/pseuds/viverella
Summary: In the end, misgivings about the Force and destiny and the will of the universe be damned, Chirrut is the beginning and end of Baze's entire world, and he would follow him anywhere, even into death.(soulmate au)





	

**Author's Note:**

> if u follow me on tumblr you know that I totally intended like a week ago to write this au for a completely different ship in a completely different fandom, but then I saw rogue one, as one does, and well, it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that as soon as the Gay Space Asians™️ appeared on screen, my immediate reaction was _yes them_
> 
> anyway, here's [that soulmate au](http://myrmiclon.tumblr.com/post/83699126169/apharthurkirklands-au-where-everything-is-black) where the world is black and white until you meet your soulmate and then after they die, the world goes back to black and white, because apparently I hate myself. this fic definitely started better than it ended but idk how to fix the ending at this point, and please forgive me if there are any glaring errors w regards to canon - this whole star wars fic writing deal is relatively new to me. also this should go without saying but major spoilers ahead!
> 
> (title borrowed from the poem quoted in brief below)

_What remains once the war is won?_

_Fame._  
_Songs._  
_A kingdom of corpses._  
_His name too heavy in my mouth._

_[...]_

_What do you do when you’re alone in the darkness?_

_Wait for him,_  
_I’ll wait forever if I must._  
                                                               —[Emily Palermo](http://starredsoul.tumblr.com/post/91479857652/what-remains-once-the-war-is-won-fame-songs)

   
  
  


_What does ‘red’ look like?_ Chirrut sometimes asks him, late at night when a hush has fallen over what used to be the temple and the usual hustle and bustle of the day has died down to low whispers of the still-reverent and the awed and the ones who have spent entire lifetimes dreaming of making it to Jedha, only to arrive just that much too late. 

_What does ‘red’ look like?_ Chirrut asks, laying on his back as if to look up at the stars that dot the night sky, like he can feel them, out there, lighting up the dark. Sometimes, Baze thinks Chirrut probably can.

 _Red is the color of your robes_ , Baze says, and sometimes he, too, looks out at the stars, trying to figure out where the universe starts and ends, wondering if this is all there is for them out there, watching the remains of their homeworld fall to pieces, Chirrut clinging to a duty that is no longer his, Baze helpless to do anything but follow. 

_Red is the color of your robes and your cheeks after you’ve been out in the sun for too long,_ Baze says, and sometimes, this is enough, just this, the two of them and the insulating darkness around them, the two of them and pretending that the entire universe isn’t inching towards collapse every day, the two of them and their tiny slice of eternity. _Red is the color of the pain that fills the streets with every shipment of kyber stripped away from the temple. Red is the color that fills the inside of my eyelids when I think of what the Empire has done to our home._

_You are too angry_ , Chirrut says sometimes, the soft timbre of his voice carrying no malice at all, just the sort of peace that Baze never thought existed before he met Chirrut. _What has anger ever done for us?_

Baze thinks that from anyone else, he’d probably find it infuriating, because there are times Baze looks around him and feels nothing but the anger heavy in his stomach, the dread of watching his home being broken down and taken away piece by piece, because there are times Baze thinks that there is no universal constant except the rage he feels at being able to do nothing to protect everything that’s made his home what it is. 

_The anger has kept us alive all this time, hasn’t it?_ Baze says instead, because sometimes this is the truth that he believes, because sometimes he needs to hear the opposite from someone outside of himself. 

Chirrut smiles then, and his eyes curve into small crescent shapes, crinkling just so at the corners, and Baze thinks, in the spare moments he lets himself be anything less than practical, that maybe if this is the beginning and end of everything, that might just be okay. 

_As you so often like to remind me, my love_ , Chirrut says, his voice light and soothing as the nighttime breeze carries it away, _It is not anger or anything else that has protected us. It’s you._

And most days, that’s enough.

\---

Baze remembers the years spent in darkness, sometimes, the years that the world seemed endless and pointless and bleak. He remembers the sharp blacks and whites of what he comes to think of as before, the harshness that he lived in, making ends meet job to job, wondering if it was always going to be like this, living from meal to meal, stealing and killing out of desperation to make something matter. Baze always grew up poor, always grew up not knowing when he wouldn’t feel hungry anymore, and he took up mercenary work in part because the pay was good and he knew if nothing else he’d be able to feed himself when the going got tough, but he’s found in his many, many jobs that the gnawing at the pit of his stomach has only gotten deeper and stronger and more often. 

He meets Chirrut at the temple when it’s still a temple, when Chirrut’s still in training to be a proper Guardian, and he’s just come off a job and is wandering the streets around the Temple of the Whills trying to find something to spend his hard-won money on. He thinks, later, that maybe he felt it, the slight shift in the air like when he spots a target through his scope for the first time, the hairs standing up at the back of his neck. He thinks, later, that maybe he’s still just desperate for something to mean anything at all. He’s a young man, then, barely old enough to be considered a man but enough to make his own way and stop being a burden on his family, and there’s a grey area between what he knows to be true and what he dreams of. 

“You know, they say that the Force moves darkly around those who intend to kill,” a voice comes from one of the shadowy archways leading into the temple. It’s quiet but steady, and there’s a slight lilt to it like there’s a joke hidden in there somewhere. 

Baze pauses. “I don’t believe in the Force,” he says, which is the truth, most days, because even though he was raised by a mother who believed, wholeheartedly, in some all-powerful unseen thing, even though he spent every day of his childhood surrounded by the insistence that everything would be okay, in the end, Baze has never seen it play out. But as he spots the man leaning against the arch at the mouth of one of the many flights of stairs leading up to the temple, this man whose eyes are clouded over, unseeing, but still seems to stare right at him, Baze wonders how certain his own certainty is. “What has the Force ever done for me?”

“Oh?” the man says, and he sounds amused. He steps lightly down a couple steps, and Baze sees then that he’s young, perhaps around the same age as Baze himself or maybe a little younger, and he’s slight and he clutches a tall staff in his hands even though he doesn’t seem to need it. “A native of Jedha and a non-believer? Curious.”

And perhaps it’s because Chirrut steps into the light or perhaps it’s because the change has finally crossed some threshold that makes the difference noticeable, but Baze notices, first, the brilliant red of Chirrut’s robes, the pale blue of his eyes, the golden tan of his skin. Baze feels his throat close up as the colors become more and more vibrant, blooming outwards until the entire world around him is covered in it, the reds and yellows and dark purples of the clothes of the people around him, the shining silvers and gemstones of the wares they sell, the gleaming stone walls of the Temple of the Whills which must have been white once but are now stained brown and yellow and orange by the wind and the sand. Baze looks down at his own hands and finds them stained red with blood, and the world around him begins to spin. 

He looks back up frantically at Chirrut, wiping his hands on his pants like it’ll rid him of his sins, and he demands, “What did you do?” 

Chirrut tilts his head to one side, just a touch. “I have done nothing,” he says, serene and unbothered and Baze wonders if he would be this calm if he suddenly found himself in a foreign world of dazzling colors as well. “All is as the Force wills it.”

Baze feels something bitter and hot well up in his throat, and he spits out, “Who the hell _are_ you?” 

He supposes he’s never liked much being told what to do, not even by the universe. 

Chirrut rocks back onto his heels and leans on his staff, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His staff is rich, dark brown wood studded with shining silver accents, and Baze wonders how he’s ever going to walk away from this, knowing that the world around him can look so bright. 

“I’m Chirrut Îmwe,” he says easily, like he’s been practicing it his whole life for just this moment. “I have been raised by the Guardians to be one of them.” There’s a pause, like he somehow knows that everything hinges on his next words, and then he offers, “Perhaps you will join me?” 

Chirrut turns and begins the long walk up the steps to the temple proper, and Baze thinks that he’ll never in a million years know how to explain what he does next, but he follows. And as he climbs the steps up to the temple, he knows, somehow, that he’s making a promise, to himself perhaps or to this man he’s only just met or perhaps to the universe itself that he will never leave. That this is the path he’s choosing. That abandonment is no longer an option. 

In the years that follow, he never asks Chirrut once how he knew what Baze knew the moment colors started appearing in the corners of his vision, but he thinks, perhaps, he knows the answer, which is, as always, that belief in a thing hardly matters sometimes. Some things just are. 

\---

 _What is ‘blue’ like?_ Chirrut sometimes asks, the two of them huddled in the catacombs of what remains of the temple, each night seeking out the places where kyber crystals still remain. They no longer live here, not like in the old days, and if they’re caught, Baze isn’t sure what’ll happen to them. After all, the Guardians are no longer supposed to exist. But each night, Chirrut asks to come, like he can’t help himself, like it’s his only tether to a world less dark and less doomed than the one they live in, and if Chirrut goes, then Baze goes too. 

_What is ‘blue’ like?_ Chirrut asks, running reverent fingertips over the surfaces of the few small crystals left. They’re not as clear or large as the ones that used to be housed in the heart of the temple, but Chirrut still touches them with the same gentle fingers like the secrets to the entire universe lie within them. Baze knows that in the days following the Empire’s order to mine the temple for all the kyber crystals that could be found, Chirrut stole one of the smaller crystals before they were kicked out for good, and he’d spent the entire evening refashioning his staff to always carry a little bit of home with him. 

_Blue is the color of your eyes_ , Baze says, and he wonders what it feels like to be so certain of anything at all. _Blue is the sky that stretches on for miles and miles. Blue is how the kyber crystals used to look when the sun hit them. Blue is the feeling of being underwater. It’s that brief feeling of peace and quiet when the water fills your ears and all you can hear is your own heart beating._

Chirrut smiles sometimes and flattens out his hand to press his palm to a kyber crystal. There was a time when the crystals used to tower over them, ranging in size from the tiniest ones no bigger than Baze’s fingernail all the way to those that nearly reached the ceiling. These days, with the entire temple being stripped down day by day, the one that Chirrut touches, no bigger than the size of his hand, is about as big as they come. And despite the many years Baze has spent at the temple, he’s never quiet believed in the belief that the Guardians hold dear, but there was always something about these chambers that made him feel like anything more than a whisper would be too much. 

_You have felt it, then?_ Chirrut says, and whenever Chirrut asks him things like this, Baze is never sure whether it’s more of a statement or a question. There are times, Baze thinks, that Chirrut is still trying to turn him into a religious man. 

_You know I don’t_ , Baze says, like he always does because it’s the truth, most days, because most days he wakes up and goes to sleep knowing that the only true certainty in the world is the ground beneath his feet and Chirrut by his side, because most days he’s satisfied with the here and now. 

Chirrut laughs, low and soft and loud still in the relative hush of the room they’re in, like it’s some longstanding joke between the two of them. In some ways, Baze thinks, maybe it is. 

\---

In the years that follow, Baze looks up sometimes and realizes that he hardly remembers the before, the years without color, the years without _him_. Sometimes, he looks up and realizes that it’s all faded into the back corners of his mind, that it feels like an entirely different lifetime and he an entirely different person. He thinks about who he was before he met Chirrut and wonders who he would’ve been if they hadn’t found each other that day in the streets outside the temple. Baze wonders how many more notches he would have put in his belt in search of something real. He wonders how much longer it would’ve taken him to realize that it would never have been enough. 

“How long had you been killing, before we met?” Chirrut asks him one day. They’re supposed to be meditating, but Chirrut wanted to explore the recesses of the temple instead where the tug of the Force is the strongest, so they’re in some tucked away chamber now, backs pressed up against a large crystal, the room dark save for the sole shaft of light that strikes the crystal just so, refracting out a warm blue against the cool stone walls. Baze always thought monks were supposed to be thoughtful and quiet and still, but one thing he’s learned about Chirrut is that he is almost never any of these things, except now, except here.

“Not long,” Baze says, and his voice comes out hushed. In the quiet, surrounded by kyber crystals older than him, it feels a little like a confessional. 

Chirrut laughs softly, and Baze feels Chirrut’s hand slide into his, curious fingers running over the calluses that have never left Baze’s hands, the scar that runs across his left palm. Chirrut touches him sometimes like he wants to memorize every detail that there is to know, like he, too, is something reverent and sacred and special. 

“You’re a terrible liar,” Chirrut says, but he doesn’t sound bothered by the notion at all. 

“I’ve never been told that before,” Baze grumbles, but his heart isn’t really in it. Chirrut’s fingers trace up and down the scar that Baze got in a fight when he was eleven, and it somehow soothes away the memory of being thrown into the dirt, frantic hands coming out to catch him only to land on sharp rocks. Baze sometimes thinks that as long as he’ll live, he’ll never figure out how Chirrut does that, how he can pull up moments of regret or guilt or pain in Baze’s life without saying a single thing and turn them over and over and over in his hands until it hardly seems to matter anymore. 

“Perhaps they were distracted by your good looks,” Chirrut offers, one of his cheery smiles pulling at the corners of his mouth. 

Baze snorts. “How would you know?” he says, which makes Chirrut laugh again, a soft, warm thing that seems to echo through the kyber crystals around them and settle somewhere deep in Baze’s chest. He thinks, sometimes, that if there’s one truth in the world, it’s not the Force or whatever mumbo jumbo Chirrut is always spouting; it’s this, the warm feeling Chirrut is somehow always able to find hidden inside Baze, a warmth that he’d thought had been lost forever. 

They sit in silence for a long moment, and Chirrut closes his eyes and leans his head back against the kyber crystal behind them like he’s trying to listen to what it has to say, and Baze wonders how long this will be their lives, studying during the day and running away to the dark corners of the temple in the evening. Sometimes, Baze feels like he’s holding his breath. 

“Have you felt it?” Chirrut asks, like he knows what Baze is thinking. Baze just grunts, and Chirrut opens his eyes again, staring very seriously ahead of him. “Something is about to happen.”

Baze swallows around a lump that’s suddenly made itself known in his throat. “What do you mean?” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t shake. 

Chirrut threads his fingers through Baze’s, and Baze could swear that Chirrut’s hand shakes, just a touch. He thinks, in surprise, that this may be the first time he’s ever seen Chirrut worried. 

“A change is coming,” Chirrut says vaguely, but there’s something low and grave in his voice. “Soon we will have many choices to make.”

Baze just grunts again in response, but he tightens his grip on Chirrut’s hand and he finds himself thinking that there is no real choice for him, because he knows, somewhere deep in his heart of hearts, that whatever Chirrut decides to do, whether it will be to stay or run or fight against whatever change is coming their way, Baze would never forgive himself if he were anywhere else but by Chirrut’s side. They’re young men still, and Baze can still count the years on his two hands that they’ve known each other, just barely, and some would say they have their whole lives ahead of them. But Baze thinks that he’s always known how this would end, that as soon as he chose to come to the temple and commit to this way of life, he was promising to run wherever Chirrut led, because there’s a certain directionality to Chirrut’s life that Baze has never had, and he’d be too scared to let Chirrut go it alone besides. And maybe, he thinks, there’s some comfort in that, at least. 

\---

 _What is ‘gold’ like?_ Chirrut sometimes asks, and sometimes Baze wonders if this is Chirrut’s way of stalling, because it seems like the end of their days here on Jedha is rapidly rushing up to meet them. There’s something in the air, like a hushed breath, impatient anticipation, and Baze knows that if he’s picked up on it, Chirrut has known it for months, maybe longer. 

_What is ‘gold’ like?_ Chirrut asks, and Baze wonders how many more days they’ll get to have of this, their little slice of peace in their drafty hut barely big enough for the two of them, with nothing more than a flimsy mattress and a handful of blankets to their name. Baze wonders how much longer they’ll get to have these moments, huddled up together under as many blankets as they can gather, Chirrut’s slender body pressed up against his, Chirrut’s ever moving hands running patterns across Baze’s skin, warm at least in this, even if the outside world has grown cold and harsh. 

_Gold is the color of your skin in the summer when the air gets hot and dry_ , Baze says, because it’s become a sort of game, after all this time, a self-soothing strategy to trick themselves into believing the entire universe isn’t about to collapse. _Gold is the sand that stretches all the way to the horizon and the stars that shine at night. It’s the feeling of being safe and happy and warm and of being loved, without reserve or judgment. Gold is coming home after a long trip. Gold is you._

Chirrut always laughs at that and trails his fingers down Baze’s spine. _You old romantic_ , Chirrut murmurs into the hollow at the base of Baze’s neck, and Baze has never thought of himself as something soft, but Chirrut always makes him feel like he can be that person if he wants to. 

_Things will be changing again very soon. I have felt it_ , Chirrut says to him one night. The winter cold is about to break into chilly spring, and it’s been years since either of them have called the Temple of the Whills home, years since the last time Chirrut said something like that, but Baze feels something familiar in the way the words settle like resolve firmly in his stomach anyways. Baze knows that Chirrut says means that a time is coming in which they will have to make choices that will set them on paths they can never return from, and he knows that this almost certainly means that the small corner of Jedha they’ve called home for the past handful of years will no longer be theirs. And Baze has always liked the steadiness of having a place to call home, of knowing where he’s going to rest his head at night, but he finds himself thinking that it really isn’t a choice at all. He knows that Chirrut, for all his training and upbringing, is and has always been a fighter, has always believed in protecting what he believes in by any means necessary, and he knows that Chirrut will want to go and fight. And wherever Chirrut goes, even if it’s to the end of the universe and back, Baze knows he will always follow.

 _You think too much about the future_ , Baze says in the days and weeks leading up to the day their lives change forever, again. _Isn’t this enough?_

Most days it is, and Chirrut laughs and presses his mouth to Baze’s like they’re still young men, like all the years haven’t worn them down into something wearier and more reckless and probably a little more stubborn. Some days it’s not, and Baze can feel the restless energy trapped just underneath the surface of Chirrut’s skin and he thinks that maybe Chirrut was never made for settling down in one place. And in the end, it’s okay, because come whatever else, Baze thinks, he will always have this, Chirrut laughing in his arms, holding him and touching him like he’s the most precious thing in the entire galaxy, and that, Baze knows, will always be enough.

\---

Change comes in the form of a girl with a kyber crystal dangling around her neck and a rebel spy with misgivings about his orders but nowhere else to turn, and when they stand and fight, Chirrut goes too, and Baze can’t think of anywhere else he belongs more than by Chirrut’s side, grumblings about always having to play clean up besides. Chirrut believes in where they’re headed, believes in their path, and his face is so bright when he speaks of the Force that Baze almost finds himself believing too. Almost. 

Their path takes them to a beach on Scarif and a hurried, half-formed plan to steal Empire secrets, and there’s a moment, between shooting down enemies and watching with a lightness in his chest as Rebel Alliance forces make it through to the planet’s surface, where Baze thinks that the idea of home might truly turn out to be more than a far-off dream. There’s a moment, and Baze thinks that maybe he and Chirrut could live to explore the galaxy together. But then it passes, as all things do, and Baze knows with sinking dread in the pit of his stomach that nothing will ever be the same again.

Chirrut walks right through the middle of enemy fire, his staff clutched firmly in his hands, fingers closed around where Baze knows the kyber crystal lies, the one that he stole from the temple before the mining ships could get to it, the whole time repeating over and over and over again the chant that he believes in maybe more than anything else. Baze hears his own voice shouting over the din of blasts and explosions, feels the words coming out ragged from his throat, frantic and panicked, but it feels almost like a dream, like he’s watching it all happen in slow motion. He feels something desperate and selfish burst out of him as he calls out for Chirrut, all but begs him to come back, because the fate of the universe be damned, Baze can’t imagine any future at all without Chirrut. 

Chirrut makes it, miraculously unscathed, and Baze feels something begin to loosen inside of him. _Just a little longer now_ , Baze thinks to himself. _Come back, come back, come back_. He doesn’t realize he’s saying it all aloud until the words have already left his mouth, trying to shout over the roar of the battle to make himself heard. Chirrut flips the switch, and Baze catches a brief look of relief and exaltation on Chirrut’s face, vindication that this thing he’s poured his entire life into believing in is real, and Baze thinks he would feel something like pride or joy if he weren’t sick to his stomach. He calls out for Chirrut again, but the syllables barely leave his mouth before another deafening explosion shakes the world around him, and when he finds his bearings and looks up again, Chirrut is lying in the sand, his staff knocked far away from him, and Baze is running before he can stop himself, all dangers of the battlefield forgotten. The edges of his vision flicker, just slightly, fading from the vibrant blues and greens and yellows of the planet on to drab greys, and Baze feels something clench in his chest, feels a little like he’s racing against time. 

“I’m here,” Baze hears himself saying over and over, like if he just believes in it strongly enough, if he believes in it like Chirrut has believed in the power of the Force his whole life, Chirrut won’t ever have to leave him behind. The grey is already starting to creep into the corners of his eyes, but when he looks down at Chirrut, brushing away debris like it’ll somehow save him, his eyes remain that steadfast, striking blue, and Baze thinks, prays perhaps for the first time since he was a child, _please_. 

“It’s okay,” Chirrut says, like Baze is the one slowly fading out instead of Chirrut himself. And then he says, like it’s a promise, like he, too, never planned on leaving Baze behind, never planned on going anywhere Baze couldn’t follow, not even in death, “Look for the Force, and you will always find me.”

His words trail off into a low breath, drowned out by the battle still raging on around them, and the entire world blacks out into shades of grey. Baze blinks, frantically, whether to clear his eyes of tears or in a futile attempt to bring the color back into the world he isn’t sure, but he hears himself murmuring what Chirrut has always said and Baze has never believed, half like he’s trying to make himself believe that the Force is something real and tangible and worth believing in, that Chirrut is really out there somewhere still watching and waiting, and half like he thinks if he just keeps saying it, it’ll be like Chirrut never left. It feels somewhere between a blessing and a prayer when he lays Chirrut’s body down in the sand and stands to face his opponents again, and as he walks forward into the line of fire, he finds himself strangely calm and centered. He’d never gotten the hang of meditation in the time he spent at the Temple of the Whills with Chirrut, but he thinks if he’d ever gotten it right, it’d probably be a little like this. 

Baze walks forward into the fray, taking down each person who comes his way with a sort of ease that, for all his years of practice, he’s never quite been able to find, not like this, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers that he’s getting hit, that it hurts, more than anything except the ache blooming in his chest where all his love should be, that this isn’t sustainable, but he presses forward again and again and again until he can no longer walk. A grenade sits, ready to blow, a few scant feet away from him, and Baze thinks about his impending death and can’t find anything in him but peace and the hollow space in his chest where Chirrut should be. He turns to look back at Chirrut, who he can still see lying in the sand, and he wonders what this new ‘after’ will be like, if it’ll all be in bright, beautiful colors, if he’ll find Chirrut sitting there waiting for him with a smile on his face like he knew Baze could never be far behind him. And Baze thinks in his final moments that maybe, in the end, Chirrut made a religious man out of him yet.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! kudos and comments are always so, so greatly appreciated! 
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](http://leosmccoy.tumblr.com) if you're so inclined!


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